Finances reasonable but more will be needed

Monday night’s County Convention in Garrison was on the whole a low key affair with no contests taking place for positions within the Management Committee.
However, the role of Treasurer will have to be filled at the first county board meeting of the new year with Patricia Durnien stepping down from the post.
Durnien has served four years in the position and she feels that she is leaving the county in a better financial place than when she started.
“I put a lot of work in during my term as Treasurer and I believe that the finances are in a better place now than when I took over. When I came in one of my aims was to reduce the debt we were in and I managed to achieve that,” she said.
Durnien added that the work of Club Eirne was crucial in terms of finances within the county, the fundraising arm of the County Board raising over £150,000 last year, a rise of nearly £50,000 on 2016 and has pledged £200,000 in 2018.
“I think that Club Eirne have made a massive contribution and you would worry where we would be if it wasn’t for them,” she said.
And in looking forward she said that funds have been put away to start work on upgrading Lissan.
“We also know that there is a huge investment needed in Lissan and for that we have put aside £100,000 from the proceeds of the wind turbine to commence that work,” she commented.
The accounts for 2017 showed that Fermanagh had an income of over £1 million which rose from £740, 588 the previous year although the income figure included a one off payment of £220,000 for the wind turbine at Lissan.
Expenditure also rose over the year from £710,903 in 2016 to £864, 448 in 2017 leaving Fermanagh with a surplus of £227, 872 although when the £220, 000 for the wind turbine is taken out it leaves a surplus of £7, 872.
Within the expenditure there was a rise of £70,000 in County Team Expenses in 2017 while Coaching and Games Development expenditure rose from £110, 133 to £201,991 over the 12 months with some of this accounted for by the employment of two full time coaches in the county.
Assistant Treasurer Sean Burns felt the figures were ‘reasonable’ but stressed that more needs to be done.
“On the overall figures, if you take out the figure for the wind turbine we are showing a small surplus of £7,000.
“But in any accounts, your surplus is what pays your repayments on your debts.
“We have had a reasonable result but the bottom line is we still have to do a lot better in the future to make Fermanagh and its finances viable because if you look closely at the accounts we are still not making enough to pay our debts,” he said.

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